Pure London Fashion Event

Pure London may be an odd name for a fashion trade show, but it's one heck of an event! Held annually at London Olympia, hundreds of stalls are set up for designers to showcase their fashion and accessory lines to buyers. If you're not a fashion buyer it's still well worth going, not least because it's free and most of the stalls sell samples at the event, but there are also amazing catwalk shows and talks that make this essential for anyone interested in fashion. This year, I was particularly keen to see a range of talks on fashion blogging.

I loved walking round and chatting to the stall owners, I couldn't believe how far some of them had travelled. Most people were lovely - the owners of this bag line pictured below not so much. When I took a photo a guy tried to snatch my phone out my hand, then ordered me to DELETE IT in a big scary voice. Manners and customer service were clearly not words in this dude's vocab, and for all he knew I could have been the head buyer of Selfridges or something. Sadly I'm not, but I do have a blog, and your precious bags are going right in it, mate! How d'you like them apples! 

They weren't even the best bags there. I liked these ones below. A rabbit wearing a hat! Imagine that.....

Check out the jewellery from Love Is on their website. The brand is from Switzerland, run by a mother and daughter team. The daughter is the lovely Kathleen McFarlane, pictured below, who gets namechecked and linked for being so nice. You hear, that evil bag company?

Another nice stall lady was this one from Mu Du vintage clothing and accessories. Check out these hats! To DIE FOR! 

I was gutted to miss a talk on improving your blog from Lee Simpson, but got to see him talking about utilising your blog for business. SO interesting and helpful, even if you blog for pleasure and not business, there were many tips on driving traffic to your blog and creating engaging content. You can see more blogging tips on the site Lee co-founded - BlogBranch.

Before I headed off I watched a catwalk show on trends for spring/summer 2015, which apparently includes Wild-West themed outfits, more sports luxe (will it ever fade away?), and a lot of wedge shoes. 

For anyone interested in fashion, shopping, blogging, business, technology, and more shopping, I'd strongly suggest registering for a free ticket to 2015's Pure London, which will be in February.